Recreational Diving - Equipment to minimise the risk of missing diver emergencies

Background
Legislation
Recommendations
Further Information
References

Background

Workplace Health and Safety Queensland is issuing a safety alert following instances where certificated divers have surfaced and drifted for extended periods before being located and rescued.

Divers drifting at the surface are at risk from drowning, dehydration, hypothermia and injuries such as stings and bites caused by marine animals.

This information will help recreational diving businesses to be prepared to respond quickly and effectively to a diving emergency and to minimise these risks in the first place.

Legislation

The Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 (PDF, 766 kB) requires businesses conducting recreational diving and snorkelling to ensure that the risk to health and safety of participants is managed effectively and that they are prepared to respond to an emergency situation.

The Workplace Health and Safety Regulation 2008 (the Regulation) and the Recreational Diving and Recreational Snorkelling Code of Practice 2005 (the Code) provide standards and advice regarding control measures for recreational dive businesses to minimise the risk of divers going missing. These include ensuring divers are supervised from the surface and are provided with appropriate signalling equipment.

The Regulation (s180) requires that lookouts at dive sites must be able to recognise relevant hazards and divers in difficulty. Devices that allow divers to be tracked during their dive may also assist lookouts in monitoring recreational divers.

Advice regarding signalling equipment for divers may be found in the Code (s1.3.6). This includes high visibility, audible and lighted signalling devices. Appropriate signalling equipment may assist lookouts in locating divers after surfacing.

Recommendations

Businesses conducting recreational diving are advised to review their control measures, with regard to equipment used by divers, to minimise the risk of separation from their surface support.

Equipment that may assist in monitoring the location of divers during a dive includes:

surface marker buoys.
delayed deployment surface marker buoys.
electronic tracking devices.

Equipment that may assist divers to signal their location, once they are on the surface, includes:

high visibility, reflective and coloured dive equipment.
high visibility signalling devices e.g. safety sausages, flags, kites, heliographs, flares, water dyes.
audible signalling devices e.g. whistles, air horns.
electronic signalling devices e.g. EPIRBs (Electronic position indicating radio beacon) and PLBs (Personal location beacons).
radar reflective devices.
equipment suitable to signal after dark e.g. strobe lights, high power torches.

Note: A lighted glow stick is not a sufficient lighted signalling device for anything other than searches in the immediate vicinity of a dive site.

Where the risk to divers being separated from surface support is high, additional consideration should be given to control measures that will assist both in immediate searches and searches coordinated by emergency services. Examples of dives where there is a higher risk of separation include dives:

in remote locations e.g. the Coral Sea or outer Great Barrier Reef.
taking place close to, or after, dusk.
in areas with strong currents.
without in-water supervision from a dive supervisor or dive instructor.

Divers equipped with several different devices have a greater likelihood of attracting attention, both in the event of one system failing or when different search techniques are employed. For example, a diver may be equipped with a flag for daylight searches, a torch for night searches, and a personal location beacon for an aerial search or surface search by a vessel equipped with a tracking device.

Divers should be instructed, including by practical demonstration where applicable, about when and how to use any signalling equipment.

The equipment should be of sufficient quality to ensure it performs effectively. In particular, previous incidents have shown that plastic film-type safety sausages can develop holes even when unused, and therefore cannot be properly deployed.

The equipment should be checked before diving starts to ensure it is in safe working condition. It should be inspected regularly to ensure it is in good condition and will perform effectively if used. It should be cleaned, kept in good repair and maintained in accordance with manufacturer’s specifications.

References

Acott, C. 457 Equipment Incident Reports, SPUMS Journal, Vol. 31, no.4, Dec 2001.

Davies, D. Diver Location Devices, SPUMS Journal, Vol. 28, no.3, Dec 1998.

Goldberg, L., Hoover , P. Surface Support, Sport Diver Magazine, Nov/Dec 2000, electronically retrieved 23/09/05.

Wallbank, A. Can Anybody See Me?, SPUMS Journal, Vol. 31, no.2, Sept 2001.

Referenced legislation and further advice regarding recreational diving and snorkelling safety may be found at: www.deir/workplace/subjects/diving/index.htm or by phoning 1300 369 915.